Page 2 of Unholy Bonds

“You have a sick soul and a desperate heart. I have to devour you, or you’ll keep consuming. You’re a monster, Keaton, but I’m a better one, and in the end, only the best survives.”

“Go-God, what’s wrong with you, you bitch?” he stuttered, flinching back. “You s-s-sound insane.”

“God’s busy with bigger things. Why don’t you ask her?” I pushed the picture of the girl in front of him—the one he killed.

Death by drug overdose. But it was his fault, his sin. The drug killed her, and he gave it to her. He fed her more and more until she died. It wasn’t an accident.

His mother, wealthy and from one of the prominent families of Detroit, paid a lot to keep it quiet. She kept every one of his sins under the cloak of money, his victims’ voices buried beneath millions of dollars.

He didn’t stop with that one girl, though. He continued to party, prey. I continued to watch and stalk until it was time.

And here we are!

I lurched up and gripped him by his hair, pulling him up from the couch. A scream left his lips.

“You-you’re crazy, fucking crazy,” he said, his eyes suddenly losing their glint.

Trembling, he tried to wrestle free, but the ketamine made him too weak to fight back. I hadn’t planned this so well to let him walk back into the world, his dirty soul safely tucked behind the masks bought by his dollar bills.

“You’ll thank me for saving you from your monsters,” I said, pressing the knife against his bleached skin with a grin. A gasp escaped his parted lips. Making sure my heels were well out of the range of blood spray, I pushed further.

His sin was too saturated in his skin, too embedded in his bones, to wash away with water. I had to use blood. Only blood would help soothe his animal and satiate my demons.

“This is your punishment, Keaton.”

His whimpers were muffled by the walls—the same sound-proofed walls his mother had built to prevent the voices of his victims from disturbing her sleep.

She was peacefully sleeping a few floors below, safe in her sanctuary, not knowing her son would soon be taking his last breath.

“I won’t ever become prey. You made a mistake when you chose me.” My knife went into his larynx with a soft squelch. “You made a mistake when you chose those girls.”

I waited for a second before swiftly yanking the blade sideways, cleanly severing his carotid and jugular in one go. Blood sprayed across the room, and his black walls accepted it without being loud about it. The white carpet, though, was not as accepting.

As long as your fucking heels are intact, right? Kat snorted when I gave my pink pair a quick once over.

Yes, Kat, it’s costly.

Keaton looked ugly, his throat gaping open as more blood gushed out of his wound. The sound was so faint, like a gurgling stream pounding against the rocks.

I let him go, and he met the carpeted floor with a thud.

“So fucking easy,” I tutted, checking the room once more, before pulling on my latex gloves. I wiped my prints from the knife I took from his mother’s kitchen.

Any good medical examiner would match the wound to the knife within the first few hours, and then the cops would dig deeper. The detectives would find out how dissatisfied Keaton’s mother was with him. Their maid would talk about their recent altercations and fights.

Of course, they were not something big enough for her to kill Keaton—she loved her son despite his shortcomings, but only I knew that. Everyone else would see what I wanted them to. They’d find a drop of blood on her silk nightgown. Maybe she’d go to prison, or she’d play the system and remain free, but I didn’t care about that.

My job here was done. All I had to do now was clean the room and leave without getting caught.

I knew where all the cameras in his mansion were. He brought me through the backdoor, where he’d already turned the cameras off. It was his way of not leaving any evidence of my visit, just in case. The irony made me chuckle.

I took my time wiping away the traces of my presence in his room. It was as if I had never been there, just as it should be.

“Goodbye, Keaton. Say hello to my father when you meet him in hell.”

2

FAMILIAR ANIMALS

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